Newly promoted Crawley stepped up to Division one of the Southern Athletics League match at Portsmouth and romped away with their first match. Liberally sprinkled with many of their British League athletes, the Crawley club amassed 265 points, nearly 100 points more than the Southampton team’s total of 165 with the home club scoring 152 and reigning League champions Brighton & Hove on 143 points.
This was a most impressive result and Crawley also provided the woman athlete of the Match in Kimberley Baptiste who notched up a fine sprint double clocking 11.7 for the 100 metres and 24.5 for the 200 metres. Craig Cox did a sprint double in the men’s event taking 200m in 22.9 and the 400m in 52.6 and this was matched by Holly Turner, who transferred from the Brighton & Hove Club to Crawley during the winter, clocking 24.9 to win the “B” 200m and 57.6 to take the 400m and she also won the “B” triple jump with 10.55m after new club mate Beth Crocker leapt 11.19m to win the “A” event. Crocker also won the “B” long jump with 5.40m after Brighton & Hove’s Katie Garland had set a pb of 5.78m when winning the “A” leap.
Fiona Clark completed a tough “A” double in the middle distance events winning the 1500m in 4:58.4 and the 3000 in 10:28.3 while Matt Lasis set a pb when winning the shot putt with 13.45m after he had crept close to the sixty metre mark with a winning throw of 59.12m in the hammer event.
A much depleted Brighton & Hove team struggled all afternoon though they did dominate the 5,000 metres winning “A” and “B” races through Howard Bristow in 15:14.0 and Max Dumbrell in 15:41.8.
Worthing fourth in Division 2W
At Parliament Hill the Worthing club also struggled to finish fourth in their Division 2W match with 139 points. Emma Macready ran a fine 2000m steeplechase for a convincing win in 6:53.2s as well as the 1500m in 4:39.0 while the hammer throwing twins Simon and Matt Evans won the “A” and “B” events respectively with 48.44m and 48.06m and evergreen Caroline Garratt, who is now in the W50 age group won the javelin throw with 38.64m